


The Greatest Change

by lantur



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/M, Post-Finale, Redemption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-17
Updated: 2015-01-17
Packaged: 2018-03-07 21:55:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3184577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lantur/pseuds/lantur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kuvira and Baatar Jr., post-finale. Originally posted on tumblr under the same username.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Greatest Change

After Republic City and the Spirit World, they cuff her at the wrists and ankles. Then they block her chi, so that she can’t metal-bend the restraints off. The several hard strikes knock Kuvira off balance, and she staggers and hops backward, humiliated, trying not to fall over on the hard sidewalk.

Su catches her. The sudden, instinctive movement seems to surprise Su as much as it surprises her. Their eyes meet for a second, and despite everything, Kuvira feels a harsh upwelling of relief at the fact that she’s alive. “Baatar,” she says, her voice catching in her throat. “What about Baatar?”

Su’s expression hardens. Without saying another word, she hands her over to the United Forces officers, and they push her into the back of the windowless armored truck. Kuvira struggles to sit up straight, to toss her loose hair out of her face. She catches one last glimpse of Su and Lin and Avatar Korra, before the doors slam shut, leaving her alone in the utter darkness. 

The truck starts up in the next moment, before speeding up and peeling away, making a sharp turn. And just like that, her long journey begins.

-

They take her to a maximum-security United Forces prison deep inside the mountains outside of Ba Sing Se, where she will stay until she stands trial. The officers who escort her inside mutter amongst themselves that it is ridiculous, putting one of the world’s best earthbenders into a mountain prison. The warden assures them that the prisoner will have her chi points blocked thrice a day, on the dot, rendering bending impossible.

Kuvira stands still as a rock and listens. Everything inside her is numb, mostly, but the news of continual chi-blocking still cuts deep, making her fidget in her restraints. Earthbending and metalbending are - were - her _life,_ as much a part of her as her blood and bones. Now she’ll lose that too. Along with her freedom, Baatar, and the closest thing to family she’d ever had. 

They strip her of her tattered green uniform and give her a faded orange prison jumpsuit to wear. At least she’s allowed the dignity of having her restraints removed and changing clothes by herself, rather than having them do it for her. Four female guards watch as she does, though. One of them moves sharply toward her, her gaze fixed around Kuvira’s neck. “What’s that?”

She reaches out, and the movement makes her, the Great Uniter, panic. Kuvira stumbles back, skittish. “No!” she cries, her hand going up to protect her neck. She almost strikes out as a reflex, but at the last moment, she remembers not to. “Don’t.”

The guard takes hold of the thin metal chain, and the engagement ring that hangs on it, but she doesn’t rip it off. “What do you think?” she asks, looking at her fellow guards.

One of them comes to join her. “It’s too thin to be a suicide risk, or to be used as a weapon,” she says. “The worst she could do with it is cut off circulation in one of her fingers.” 

Another shakes her head. “I don’t like it. It’s metal.”

"So are the bars," the other guard points out. "She’s going to be chi-blocked anyway." 

The first guard releases the delicate chain abruptly, and Kuvira lets out a ragged breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “Thank you,” she says, to their feet.

-

Her cell is forty paces across and forty paces long, and located in the very bowels of the mountain. There is an attached bathroom with no shower curtain and faucets and knobs that are so flimsy they could never be used as weapons. Her cell itself is completely bare, without so much as a cot or pillow to lie on. It’s dark and cold.

There are no distractions.

For an indeterminable length of time, Kuvira lies curled up on the floor in a fetal position. Then she paces. Then she resumes sitting in a huddled mass at the far end of the cell, staring bleakly outside. 

She tries to sleep as much as she can, just to block out the horrible, intrusive thoughts and memories of Republic City. Of the spirit vine weapon and the Colossus and Baatar, of aiming the weapon at the small airbenders, and at the factory. But she can’t escape the memories, even in sleep. The nightmares are horrible. Instead of her weapon’s attacks missing the airbenders, they find their mark. Opal and the rest of the small airbender children are incinerated in midair. Instead of at least some of the people in the factory escaping, they’re all dead and burned, every last one of them. 

Kuvira throws up at least once a day, huddled over her toilet, retching and heaving and more often than not, sobbing. It gets to the point where the guards give her pills that are supposed to make her stop vomiting. 

All she wishes is that Su had told her whether Baatar was alive or not. It plagues her. But either way - either he’s dead, and she sobs - _what had she been thinking_ \- or he’s alive and he despises her. It would be justified. But she can’t help but remember when they had both been children, when they had met at eight and eleven, and immediately formed a fast, lasting friendship. In the afternoons, after school was over, Baatar had been the one to show her around Zaofu. 

When thinking about that becomes too painful, Kuvira wonders what has happened to the Earth Empire. Has her army been disbanded? Has the painstakingly reunited empire been split, and returned to a state of disarray and lawlessness? Or has that incompetent Prince Wu been crowned as king? She tries asking the guards for news at least twice a day, every time they bring her food They never answer, no matter whether she yells, orders, asks rationally and calmly, begs, or pleads.  

It’s that she’s thinking about one day, sitting at the back of her cell, when she hears noises outside of her cell, far down the hall. Kuvira lifts her chin from her knees, looking up with vague interest. There is never any activity in her hall. She’s the only prisoner in this entire cell block. Suddenly, her chest flutters. If there’s a new prisoner, they can bring her news of the Earth Empire. They’ll be able to tell her what has happened to it in the weeks, months, however long that she’s been in here. 

She shuffles over to the bars and settles on her knees, squinting in the darkness, and waiting. 

"I think I know just where to put you," one of the guards tells the new prisoner, whoever he or she is is. The guard’s voice drifts toward her, loud and mocking. "It just so happens that your fiancee has an empty cell to her right. Would you like that?"

Kuvira almost falls over. It can’t be. She almost grabs the bars tight, tries to crane her neck to see through them, almost shouts his name. But she’s frozen with shock, and she just watches, wide-eyed, as four guards escort Baatar to the cell next to her.

The guards laugh at her reaction. “I brought some company for you,” one of them tells her, as he unlocks Baatar’s cell.

She doesn’t even notice; she’s so busy trying to catch a glimpse of him through the phalanx of guards. Baatar won’t meet her eyes, he refuses to look at her, but he looks whole, healthy, unharmed. None the worse for wear from the spirit vine attack, despite how the weapon should have vaporized him and everyone else in the factory. Kuvira bites the inside of her cheek to keep from dissolving into tears. He’s _alive._  

She looks away when the guards shove Baatar into his cell with more force than necessary and lock him up. She ignores their several-minute-long taunting session, about how Baatar was _whipped_ and whether whatever she gave him was worth it, about how conjugal visits aren’t a thing in this prison, sorry. 

Baatar hasn’t learned yet, of course. He snaps and snarls, calling them imbeciles, cretins, idiots, and Kuvira leans her head against the side of her cell wearily. She thought knowing that he was alive would alleviate some of the ache inside her, but it’s still gnawing away at her insides. She’s never heard Baatar, her gentle, soft-spoken Baatar, sound so angry. She is responsible for this. 

Finally, the guards depart, probably off to torment prisoners in another cell block. The door slams behind them and the light of their torches vanishes. There is silence. 

Kuvira grips the bars and leans close, trying in vain to peer into the neighboring cell. “Baatar,” she says, taking a deep breath, in an attempt to maintain her calm. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Please believe me. I don’t know what I was thinking. I don’t know what came over me on that day. It’s - I’ve been reliving that afternoon in my mind every day since, and I…” Her voice cracks, and though he can’t see her, she wipes the corners of her eyes hastily with her too-long sleeve. 

Silence. She remembers, she remembers, _forget the United Republic, we have our empire. We have each other. Let’s go back home and get married. The only thing that matters is that we’re together for the rest of our lives._

"I would do anything to go back and make a different decision," Kuvira says. " _Anything._ ”

Silence.

"Kuvira," Baatar says, after several moments. His voice is tired and cold all the same time. "Please don’t talk to me."

-

There are several things that Baatar hates about prison. The accommodations are worse than he expected, even for prison. Every single one of his muscles and bones aches from sleeping on the stone floor, without so much as a pillow to rest his head on. There is a penetrating chill in the air and no warmth to be found anywhere, even in the weak streams of water from the bathroom sink and dilapidated shower stall. He tries to occupy himself by keeping up with his exercise routines, but that only takes up so much time. He could while away hours by working on advanced mathematics problems, but the guards refuse him paper and a pen - not even a single sheet, not even scraps from the newspaper. 

There are no books, or stars to track across the sky. This is the longest he has ever been separated from a lab. Mentally, Baatar feels himself losing his grip. He tries to stave it off by sitting with his eyes closed, thinking of inventions, but then the thoughts intrude - that he will never get to invent anything again, that he will never draw another schematic plan, and that he will spend the rest of his life in this jail cell. 

He thinks of Zaofu, of his siblings, Wei and Wing with their mother, Huan making his art, Opal flying in the sky with her bison. Free, happy. Baatar takes to leaving his glasses off because it’s easier to wipe his eyes that way.

The worst thing, though, is hearing Kuvira cry at night.

She does it quietly. He suspects that she’s biting down on the sleeve of her jumpsuit to stifle the noise, but he hears it anyway. He has never heard Kuvira cry before. She has always been the picture of toughness and resilience, as strong as the metal she bends. It shouldn’t bother him, not after everything, but it does anyway. It makes Baatar’s chest hurt. He would ask the guards to move him to another cell, but Kuvira would overhear the request and it would hurt her even more - _why_ he still cares about Kuvira’s feelings, after everything, is a mystery - and he doubts the guards would be sympathetic anyway. Besides, he has enough self-awareness to know that if he got moved to another cell, he would spend his time there thinking about Kuvira, and wondering if she had stopped crying.

Baatar doesn’t say anything to comfort her when she cries at night. He doesn’t think she wants him to know. What could he say, in any case? That it would be okay? It won’t be okay, for either of them, for spirits know how long. He can’t snap at her to stop crying, either, even though in some bitter moments, he thinks it. Kuvira had masterminded all of this and executed it (admittedly, with his help), and _now,_ months too late, she feels remorseful? 

He keeps his mouth shut until the guards start making comments, about how this is the third meal that Kuvira hasn’t touched, and then the sixth. And then about how she hasn’t eaten anything in four days. At about that time, Baatar notices that the quiet crying at night has stopped. Instead, there is just a heavy silence. He can’t help but imagine her huddled at the back of her cell, her arms wrapped around her middle. She must be hungry. 

He debates it for some time, and then on the fourth day, he settles on his knees near the grate that separates their cells. “Kuvira,” he says, breaking the weeks-long silence between them. “You have to eat something.”

Through the grate, he hears movement, the rustling of fabric. Maybe Kuvira is lying near it. “Why?” she asks, her voice bleak. “I’ve ruined everything.”

"Avatar Korra wanted you to live." Baatar touches the grate. "She could have easily let the spirit weapon kill you, but she saved your life. She saw something in you worth saving."

Kuvira is quiet for a while. “Avatar Korra showed me compassion and kindness I didn’t deserve.” Her voice breaks. “Su will get you out of here soon. You have a home and a family to go back to. I ruined the closest thing I had to a family, and the only home I ever really knew. I had everything in Zaofu, and I threw it away. And still, I could have had everything with you, if I had just chosen to retreat from Republic City when we had the chance, and look what I did instead!” 

Baatar closes his eyes, unable to deal with the what-ifs, as much as the raw pain in her voice. “You did what you thought was right,” he replies, trying to hide the bitterness. 

"And look where it got us." Kuvira is crying, now. "Wei and Wing and Opal were in that factory too. And I fired at _children,_ Baatar, the little airbenders. I completely lost my mind, and I only see what a monster I was now. I would give anything to do it all over, but I can’t, I can’t.”

"Kuvira—"

He hears her footsteps on the other side of the grate, and then the slamming of her bathroom door. She stays in there, the shower running, until the guards come in an hour later to deliver her next meal and drag her out.

-

Halfway through the next day, the guards open his cell door. One of them marches in and drags him up from his meditation position, ignoring his protests. Baatar struggles against his grip, wondering if it’s his mother, if she has come to visit. To his shock, the guards unlock Kuvira’s cell door and shove him inside, along with a tray of food. 

"Make her eat," one of the guards orders, pointing at him. "Maybe you can get through to her. And no funny business."

They leave, stomping off down the hallway. Baatar is left holding a metal tray of food, bewildered, and for the first time in months, he sees Kuvira. 

The sight hits him harder than he had expected. She is huddled in the back of her cell, looking small and tired and utterly defeated. She’s lost weight, undoubtedly from her recent starvation. Only her hair is recognizable, braided down her back like it had been in Zaofu. 

She avoids his eyes. “You can go,” she says. “Forget it.”

Baatar sets the tray down and takes the bruised apple off it. Perhaps it will be better to start with something light. He makes his way over to her and kneels at her side, unable to ignore the realization that this is the closest that they have been since their embrace before Kuvira had begun the attack on Republic City. She looks at him out of the corner of her eye, maybe remembering the same thing, and then looks away.

"Why are you doing this?" she asks quietly. "You must hate me." 

Baatar ignores the question, perhaps because it’s one of the few that he doesn’t know the answer to. “You owe me,” he says, the firmness of his tone surprising even him. “Eat this.” 

Kuvira glances up at him, and then quickly away. Finally, reluctantly - careful not to allow her fingers to brush his - she takes the apple and bites into it with a crunch. The juice runs down her chin, and she wipes it away with her sleeve. Baatar is reminded of picking fruits in Zaofu during the summer, when they were both children. _Kuvira, don’t eat too many strawberries,_ he had always warned her, and she just stuck her tongue out at him. _I want them!_

Without fail, she would eat too many strawberries, and they’d walk home slowly, Kuvira groaning and clutching her stomach and Baatar never saying that he told her so. 

Now, he sits with her until she finishes the apple. When she does, he wordlessly pushes the rest of the tray over to her. As reluctant as she had looked a few minutes earlier, her appetite seems to have been rekindled by the apple. Kuvira eats the rice enthusiastically, though her chopsticks tremble a little in her fingers. She’s bending over the tray, immersed in her meal, when Baatar notices the thin chain that hangs from around her neck. 

His heart stops for a second. Before Kuvira can even look up from her rice, he stands and moves toward the bars. “Guards,” he calls, down the hall. “You can return me to my cell now.”

-

Baatar goes back to his cell and lies on his back, staring at the ceiling.

Even after everything, after the attack on the factory, he had never doubted that Kuvira loved him. Not even for a second. There’s been plenty of speculation in every newspaper and editorial column across the former Earth Empire and the _world_ that Kuvira had merely been using him for his engineering expertise, but he had never believed it. He had ever doubted her motivations.

Kuvira loved him. He is absolutely, one hundred percent certain of that fact. She had just loved her ideals more. 

That makes it even more painful than the alternative.

-

"Thank you," Kuvira tells him, through the grate, a day after she has resumed eating again. 

Baatar had been pacing in circles, contemplating alternatives to electric power in rural areas. He stops in front of the grate. “You’re welcome.”

For a little while, the usual silence falls over them again. “Baatar?” Kuvira asks. It sounds like she’s sitting near the grate. It sounds like she had drawn up all of her courage to start talking to him again, after he had asked her not to, upon his arrival. “Why are you here?”

Baatar blinks, looking incredulously down at the grate. “No,” Kuvira says impatiently, as if she had seen him. “I mean, why are you in prison? I thought Su would have done something to spare you.”

Baatar sighs. “She tried,” he says shortly, sinking to his knees. “She said that she could pull some strings and get me house arrest in Zaofu, but I had to—”

He trails off, and he can almost imagine Kuvira frowning at the wall that separates them. “What?”

"I had to testify that you manipulated me into all of it," Baatar says, so quietly that he wonders if she will be able to hear him. "I had to say that I did it all for you, because of my feelings for you. Leaving Zaofu, creating the spirit vine weapon, building the Colossus, everything. I refused." 

When Kuvira finally speaks, he can hear the confusion in her voice. “Why? If it meant your freedom—”

Baatar grips the grate with a white-knuckled fist. “That’s what everyone was saying,” he spits. “You should have seen the newspapers, and how they talked about poor, pathetic, foolish me, willing to do horrible things just because I was so blindly enamored with my fiancee. When I testified before the United Forces, I told the truth. I told them that my own ambition and desire to prove myself drove me to leave Zaofu and do everything I did afterward. I told them how badly I wanted to rule the Earth Empire by your side, and make my mark on the world. I told them that didn’t regret any of it, not a single moment, until Korra took me captive in Republic City.”

Kuvira is startled, quiet, and then he hears her make a sound that is almost a laugh. “Su must have been thrilled.”

"She and my father wanted me to come home - they said they forgave me - but I couldn’t. How could I return to Zaofu, as if nothing had happened?" After so long of not talking to Kuvira, it’s all spilling out now, and Baatar grips his hair, agitated. "The things I _said_ to them, how I acted to my father when we took Zaofu - and I designed the spirit weapon that almost killed Opal, and so many other people. I knew that Opal and Huan would forgive me in time, but Grandmother Toph and Wing and Wei—”

He chokes, and in her cell, Kuvira instinctively touches the grate - the closest she can get to him.

"I deserve to be here," Baatar says tersely, after he regains his composure. "Just as much as you do." 

-

They start talking more, in the weeks that follow. Baatar tells her that the last he heard, Prince Wu had decided to give up the throne and allow the separate states of the Earth Kingdom to rule themselves, in a democratic system reminiscent of the one in Republic City. Kuvira paces and seethes about how it’s a failure of an idea, a miserable idea, and that chances are good that each state will end up with a corrupt leader, “just like that useless excuse for a president in Republic City.” 

"How they are even going to split the Earth Empire up into states?" Kuvira rages, storming up and down her cell. "How will they decide who has the authority to lead each state? How are they going to prevent these politicians from bribing voters? Did _anyone_ think this through?”

She goes on in this vein for some time, until the guards arrive and yell at her to be quiet. Kuvira sits by the grate in mutinous silence until they leave. “Stupid,” she mutters, as soon as they are alone again. 

For the first time since being thrown in prison, Baatar smiles.

-

Time goes on.

Kuvira sits on her side of the grate and suggests to Baatar that keeping up with his exercise routine might be helpful for maintaining his mental health. Baatar asks her if she has enough room in her cell to practice any of her old dance routines. 

-

One morning, Kuvira wakes up and feels different. She uncurls herself from her stiff ball on the floor and flexes her fingers experimentally. 

The stone beneath her, the walls around her, they are all alive. The metal grate and the bars as well. A guard has been sloppy with his timekeeping, apparently. Her chi is usually blocked on the dot, thrice a day, without exception. She hasn’t had the ability to bend in months, since Republic City.

She could break out of here in a second. She could turn these bars into knives that would impale any guard who tries to stop her. She could blast a hole into the side of this mountain and start running (be in fresh air again, under the sun and the stars, and feel the breeze on her face, it’s been months and it may be decades before she feels that again, if ever) and never be seen again.

Kuvira hears quick footsteps rushing down the hall, toward her cell. Three guards, trying to hide their panic. If she’s going to act, it has to be now. There’s a firebender, a metalbender, and a waterbender among them, but overpowering them should be easy.

She lies back down in a fetal position, pretending to be asleep. Just then, the guards come to a stop in front of her cell, heaving audible sighs of relief. “Thank the spirits,” one of them mutters, over and over again. “If she had woken up and realized…”

"It doesn’t bear thinking about," the other guard says fervently.

The other guard blocks her chi, and Kuvira groans in her “sleep”, curling into a tighter ball. The guards make a hasty retreat, and only then does she open her eyes, staring up at the stone-gray ceiling.

-

Kuvira has a list of things she is not allowed to think about, to maintain her own sanity. 

This is not new. This list has existed since she was eight, and her mother and father  had left her. There was only so much food to go around, and she supposes that they thought her older brothers were more deserving of the limited rations. Her parents, and the time before Zaofu and Su, are the primary items on the list of things she may not think about, not under any circumstances. 

There are other things on the list as well, now. Everything that had happened in Republic City. Her old life in Zaofu. Time spent with Baatar before Republic City. The fact that she is going to rot in this prison cell for perhaps the rest of her life, and never have freedom again. It’s interesting, how she hadn’t fully appreciated the feeling of grass and earth underneath her feet, and sunshine warming her skin, until all of that had been taken away forever.

Above all, she is no longer allowed to think about how she would do anything, give anything, for a chance to do it all over, to do it right, if only it was possible. She feels agonizingly like a trapped animal, in this cell, and it’s killing her. She is young and healthy and strong, and she could be doing so much, but instead, she’s stuck here. With no end in sight. 

The extensive nature of the list leaves very few things for her to think about. 

Kuvira is in the midst of meditating when one of the guards opens her cell door with a loud, unceremonious clang. “Get up,” he orders. “You have a visitor waiting.” 

Kuvira is up and on her feet, eager as a puppy, before she realizes that it must be a mistake, that there is nobody on earth who would possibly come to visit her. The visitor has to be for Baatar.

But the guards are already dragging Baatar out of his cell, securing restraints around his wrists. He looks as confused as she does. The guards storm into her cell, restrain her wrists and ankles, and then shove her outside, alongside Baatar. They are marched down the cell block like animals, surrounded by an escort of ten guards. Kuvira wants to ask Baatar if it’s Su that has come to visit, but she doesn’t dare. Besides, why would Su want to see her? 

She’s hoping against hope even as she thinks it, though, her heart beating a wild tattoo against her ribcage. She’s imagining ridiculous, impossible things, like Su taking her by the hands and saying that she is forgiven, just like she had forgiven her son. It’s enough to almost bring tears to her eyes, and Kuvira blinks hard. Stupid, stupid. It’s never going to happen. The visitor is probably just the attorney unfortunate enough to represent her and Baatar at their trial.

They finally reach the visitation room at the end of the cell block. To Kuvira’s complete astonishment, the person who opens the door from the inside isn’t one of the prison guards, but a young man she belatedly recognizes as Bolin’s older brother, the firebender. Mato? No, Mako. “Thanks,” he tells the guards. “We can take it from here.”

The captain hesitates. “Are you sure?”

Mako nods. “Positive.”

Unwilling to pass up a final attempt at harassment, the guards literally push Kuvira and Baatar inside, slamming the door behind them. Kuvira looks around, startled, struggling to adjust to the dim, flickering light. She hasn’t seen any light aside from a guard’s torch since she had been brought here. 

Mako stands in one corner of the room, his posture tense and guarded. Bolin is in the other corner, dressed in the same Republic City police uniform as his brother, and looking profoundly uncomfortable. Asami Sato stands at the third corner, wearing what Kuvira recognizes as an electrified Equalist glove. The leader of Future Industries glares at her with undisguised venom, but really, it’s none of them that hold her attention for longer than half a second. 

That is reserved for the young woman in the center of the room, dressed in Water Tribe clothing. The woman who had saved her life, though they had been mortal enemies. Who had helped her limp out of the spirit portal in Republic City, when she had been too weakened to stand. 

Kuvira bows deeply. “Avatar Korra.”

The Avatar crosses over to her and puts a hand on her shoulder, gently lifting her up. “Hello, Kuvira. Hi, Baatar.”

There are a million questions that Kuvira wants to ask, and they all tangle up in her throat. “How long has it been?” is what she finally manages, looking at the Avatar. 

Korra gives her a small, sad smile. “One and a half years.”

"How is my family?" Baatar asks, visibly anxious. "I haven’t been allowed to write."

"They’re all okay," Korra reassures him. "Everyone’s in Zaofu, except for Opal. Right now, she’s helping with an earthquake relief effort in the Fire Nation." She looks at Kuvira. "I’m sure you’re both wondering why I’m here."

Kuvira nods, trying her best to maintain her composure. Did their trial take place without them? Has the Avatar come to deliver the news of their sentencing? This one and a half years alone has felt like twice that.

"Your trial hasn’t started yet," Korra says calmly, slowly. "There was a hearing in Omashu that I just got back from, regarding the trial’s proceedings and possible sentencing."

Kuvira takes a deep breath. She had hoped to spend a decade or two in this place, but if it’s going to be a life sentence, she can cope. She will cope. She deserves whatever she gets. “Go ahead,” she says, bracing herself. “I can deal with it.”

"I negotiated with the council about some things, and they agreed," Korra says, a little evasively. "It took a while, and it definitely wasn’t unanimous, but they agreed. The final decision is up to both of you, of course."

Beside her, Baatar frowns. “What was it?”

"Instead of spending your twenty years in here," - Korra gestures to the walls - "You can serve your time another way."

It takes a moment for it to sink in, and when it does, Kuvira feels like she has been hit. “What?” she asks, bewildered. “What do you mean?”

"Hard labor." Korra walks to the small table in the center of the room and picks up a map, showing it to them. "There are lots of villages and little towns in the former Earth Kingdom that are so rural and remote that developmentally, they’re in the same place that they were during the Hundred-Year War. There’s no running water, often no electricity, no vehicles, low education and literacy levels, and rampant poverty and food insecurity. This shouldn’t be the case, in 176 A.G. We need people to help turn things around, but it’s a difficult job that nobody really wants to—"

"I’ll do it," Kuvira says, before Korra has even finished speaking. Her heart is pounding again, and for the first time in a long time, she feels _alive._ The prospect of having a purpose and being able to aid the people of the Earth Empire again, even if it’s on the smallest scale possible, is exhilarating.”I’ll do absolutely whatever needs to be done, for however long it takes. I’ll do anything you need me to do to rebuild, with my earthbending and metalbending or without. Whatever you think is appropriate.” 

Korra nods, satisfied. “That’s what I told the council. You’re young, healthy, and one of the best metalbenders alive. It would have be a waste to have you just sitting in here, when you could be using your abilities to help others.” 

She’s so overwhelmed that she could hug Korra, but that might frighten her - or at least, be made more difficult due to her handcuffs. Kuvira settles for giving her the world’s most awkward pat on the shoulder. “Thank you,” she says, and she doesn’t even mind the way her voice cracks. Korra has seen her at her lowest point before. “I owe you my life, and so much more.” 

"You can repay me by making sure that I don’t regret my suggestions to the council," Korra says firmly. "I don’t want this to be an Aang and Yakone type of situation. You can earthbend and metalbend, but you _cannot_ run for or hold any kind of elected office. Ever. You can’t work in politics, on the large scale or the small. You can’t form any kind of army or militia force, or do _any_ kind of work against anybody who is elected to office. Your days of holding positions of power are over. And people are going to be keeping tabs on you, but I won’t say who. If you step out of line even once, or just move to some city to live the easy life, I’ll know.” 

Kuvira bows her head. “I understand,” she says, honestly and without hesitation. “I swear on my life to honor your terms.” 

Korra’s expression softens. “Good.” She glances over at Baatar, who looks apprehensive. “The same terms apply to you too. Except that your mom campaigned to allow you to be released to Zaofu, to serve your sentence under the supervision of your family.”

Baatar looks lost for words, but finally, he nods.

"So, that’s settled," Korra says. She hands the map to Kuvira, who takes it with a slightly shaking hand. "The towns and villages that need help are marked on there. Stay however long they need you in each place. There’s no need to formally notify anyone when you move on. I’ll know." 

Kuvira tightens her grip on the map, and feels her heart swell with determination. “Thank you, Avatar Korra,” she says, with feeling. “I’ll make you proud.”

"Yeah," Korra says, a hint of a smile on her face. "I think you will."

Kuvira nods at the Avatar’s friends, none of whom look pleased, and she turns to the door, to the guards outside—

To Baatar, standing there and looking strangely miserable. 

It hits her, in a way that it hadn’t in Republic City, that this is going to be the last time she ever sees him. That he’s going to go back to Zaofu and she’ll never see him - the only person she has ever really loved - again.

The realization knocks the breath out of her, feels like knives going through her, but Kuvira forces herself to remain calm. She takes a deep breath, looking up at him. “Take care, Baatar,” she says evenly. She can’t help but remember her last words to him before firing the weapon at the factory, and from the look on his face, she knows he is remembering the same thing. _I love you,_ she wants to say. _I love you so much, and you deserved better than what I did to you._ But there is no chance that he wants to hear it. “Be well.” 

She leaves without giving him a chance to reply, without looking back.

-

Under the supervision of the female guards, Kuvira changes into the loose brown pants and belted green dress that were provided for her. It’s the first time she’s worn anything besides her prison jumpsuit and army uniform in more than four years. It makes her feel different; look different, and Kuvira regards herself appraisingly. She’s never dressed like this. Before she had been a prisoner, she had been the Great Uniter. Besides she had been the Great Uniter, she had been the captain of Su’s guard. Before that, she had been a student of Zaofu’s metalbending clan. Has she ever been just Kuvira? Not in years. Not until now.

She shoulders the knapsack that the guards had given to her, takes her map in a firm hand, and strides out of the prison.

It is a long walk down the mountain, and thrice that to the train station marked on the map. Kuvira breathes deeply, savoring the fresh, pine-scented air in her lungs, the feeling of the earth beneath her feet, and the sunlight on her skin and hair. It takes every bit of effort she has to keep her thoughts trained exclusively on her future, and her unexpected chance for redemption, rather than Baatar. 

It takes a full day of walking, from morning to night, to make it to the small train station in town. The station is empty at this time of night, and Kuvira settles on a bench with her knapsack. According to the timetable posted on the wall, the next train to Angquin is at six in the morning. She has time. As restless as her mind is, though it’s thrumming with anticipation and excitement, mingled with despair, her body is exhausted. She drifts off into a fitful sleep, clutching her knapsack tight.

-

Kuvira wakes up slowly, to the light of the rising sun on her face, and then, to a familiar voice.

"You should be more careful. Someone could have easily stolen your bag while you slept."

Kuvira’s eyes snap open, and she turns so fast that she pulls a muscle in her neck. She isn’t alone on the bench. The last person she had expected to see is sitting right next to her, holding her knapsack in his arms. 

"Baatar!" she cries, so loudly that people on the other side of the train station stop and stare. It’s unbelievable - she has to rub her eyes to make sure she’s not still asleep - and he is smiling a little at her unguarded reaction. When was the last time she saw Baatar smile at her? She had missed it. She hadn’t even realized how much she had missed it. 

"What are you doing here?" she stammers, looking at the timetable. There’s no train to Zaofu marked there, or even a train to any cities remotely _near_ Zaofu. “You’re - I thought you were going back to Zaofu!”

Baatar shakes his head, unrolling his map to show her that it’s the same as hers. “I couldn’t,” he said. “I realized after you had left, and I told Avatar Korra. She told me that she figured I would say that, and she gave me this.”

Kuvira stares at him disbelievingly. “Why? Why would you…?”

"I can’t face them yet," Baatar says, looking away. "Maybe someday, but not now. I want to make them proud of me first."

"I know they will be," Kuvira says forcefully. "Which town are you headed for?" She won’t change her travel plans to match his, she won’t, she won’t even be tempted to, he probably wants space and to be alone—

"Wherever you are," Baatar says, without missing a beat. "If you want me there."

This time, her eyes do fill up with tears. Kuvira braces her elbows on her knees and leans forward, unable to believe that this is happening. It’s too much, after the shock of yesterday. “After everything I did? You still—”

Baatar takes her hands. “You said you wanted a second chance,” he says quietly. “All we wanted, when we left Zaofu, was to help the people of the Earth Kingdom. This is our second chance, Kuvira.”

In the distance, Kuvira hears the sharp whistle of the train. She stands, not letting go of his hand. “Come on,” she says. After so long, the muscles in her mouth are unused to smiling, but it feels good. It feels so good. “That’s our train to Angquin.” 

They walk to the platform together, hand-in-hand, waiting for their new beginning.

-

_When we hit our lowest point, we are open to the greatest change._

-


End file.
